BLOGGER RECOGNITION AWARD

I’m so thrilled and thankful to Jill at Jill’s Book Cafe, Jen at Jenmedsbookreviews, Kristin at KristinNovelCafe, Jo at Josbookblog, and Emma at EmmaBookishCorner for nominating me for the Blogger Recognition. This means so much to me as I’m fairly new to this wonderful blogging community. These are all blogs I make sure to visit daily for their new posts so please stop by each of them, they’re fantastic!

Rules of this award:

Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog
Write a post to show your award
Give a brief story of how your blog started
Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers
Select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to
Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide a link to the post you have created

How I Got Started

I had been wanting to start a blog for over 2 years but being pretty tech-challenged I always felt like I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to get started. Finally, in the fall, at the encouragement of my book club I signed up for WordPress and got to work setting up Its Book Talk . I had the intention of putting my reviews and recommendations into the world and hoping someone would find them helpful and at the same time maybe I’d be able to connect with a few people to discuss books. I quickly discovered an entire community of like minded readers who all love to talk about books!! I had absolutely no idea this type of blogging community existed and it’s been the best surprise ever! I have met so many wonderful bloggers from all over the world and I feel honored to call many of them my friends.

Advice

Everyone has their own method of reviewing, but something I always try to think about before sitting down to write is to be honest. I try to convey the different parts of a story and how well they worked or didn’t work in my opinion. I always picture the author possibly reading my review so if there are things that may not have worked for me I make sure to convey that in a respectful manner.

Try to interact as much as possible with other bloggers by commenting on posts and reviews. For me, what has made this whole blogging experience so fun is chatting with others in the blogging community. I appreciate each and every time someone has taken the time to leave a comment!!

In addition to the awesome ladies above who nominated me (thank you again:) , I’d like to nominate 15 fantastic blogs, each one providing their own unique spin on blogging. I love visiting these blogs for their variety of posts and reviews so please make sure to check them out!!

Aw, thank you for nominating me! It’s hard to believe you’re a relative newcomer to blogworld – feels like you’ve been part of the community for ages! I totally agree that it’s getting out there and chatting with other bloggers that makes the whole thing fun. What I especially like about the book blogosphere is that even when we disagree we’re always respectful of other people’s opinions – a real rarity in online life! I already follow most of your nominees, but I’m off now to visit the few that I haven’t met before… 😀

You’re welcome! I agree with what you said, I didn’t have much of an online life before my blog and I’m feeling that the book blogging is probably unique in the level of respectfulness everyone gives each other…it’s just the best!

I need to do that today too Jill, although we’re getting crazy warm sunny weather here today which is unheard of for Feb so I will have to head out and walk at the park at some point:) I’ve gotten a little snowed under in terms of reviews needing written and books needing read…

You’ve got a fantastic blog filled with honest and brilliant reviews, it’s always a pleasure to read your posts so I’m glad you got the award!! Your advice is the best, I mean, on top of writing for the sake of the books and to empty our heads and hearts a bit, chatting and getting involved in the community is the best!
Thanks so much for nominating me along such awesome bloggers! xx

You’re so welcome and thank you for all your support!! I’ve had the best time getting to kknow you and chatting and sharing books:) And all things Bachelor🤣Speaking of which did you see The Bachelorette has already been announced??

Thank you Renee! Two years and you still give to the blog and the community tirelessly ❤ That is very impressive. I absolutely love your reviews. This was fun as I always want to know more of the mastermind.

Ohhh thanks! I remember doing this one a while ago, what you said is completely true, there are some bloggers that I met at first and never commented on anyone’s posts and I think they only wanted to be successful and get ARCs…

Great post Renee and I totally agree with you about the interaction with the community. When I first started blogging, I used to be one of those bloggers who didn’t interact with others. I would just post and share my posts on my facebook page. It was a lonely and boring experience lol. The interactions is what makes this so much fun.

I need to work on interacting (and playing well) with others. Sometimes I am so focused on sharing reviews or posts, that I don’t realize that a genuine comment can go a long way. No matter how many of your reviews I share on Pinterest, we can’t forge a meaningful relationship without interacting. Sound advice 🙂

Thank you Victor and thanks also for sharing my reviews on Pinterest. I wish I was on it but I can only handle so much social media and I’ve got my hands full with Instagram and Twitter!! I appreciate the shares very much and you also deserve the nomination:) I’ve enjoyed your reviews and thanks to your keen observations I can no longer look at the staged instagram photos of the coffee, socks, and books and not think of your words😂Which were so true by the way….no one really reads like that!!

You’re welcome Renee. I just want to clear something up… while I have shared your reviews on Pinterest, when I wrote “your reviews” in my comment, I was using the impersonal ‘your’. I wasn’t specifically addressing you. It was referencing the others that I’m supposed to interact with. Sometimes I balk at leaving a comment because I have little to nothing to say, other than “Nice review”; especially if the review is well written but I’m not interested in reading the book.

I haven’t forgotten that I owe you a staged instagram pic in some cute socks 🙂 I’m still working on borrowing a pet.